RSG spacing.

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Scott Bogard" <teslas-intern@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Greetings everybody.
    Ok, I just finished a Synchronous rotary spark gap, and I am 
having some difficulties getting it in phase (the motor is a modified 
induction type, and it is salient pole, and plenty powerful).  I 
adjust the phase by rotating the motor in it's mount, I got it "dead 
on" in my test rig with an OBIT and a salt water cap, but using my 
MOT array, it seems to usually be slightly out of phase, giving a 
periodic surging, about every 3 seconds or so which I can make much 
better by adjusting the phase, but rarely get perfect.  The surging 
went away for a while, I believe because the fast start slid it 
slightly in its mount, and it was good for several runs, giving 
really good arcs.  Any tips for fine adjustment would be appreciated, 
but that is not actually why I am writing (and no, I do not really 
have time or money to build an electronic phase adjuster right now, 
but if you have plans for one that can handle a .5 HP 1800 RPM motor, 
I'll gladly tuck it away for later!).
    My question, primarily, is why does the rotary gap spacing have 
to be so close, as is suggested on many websites.  I can understand 
this with an asynchronous, as the firings are all at different 
potentials so it would need to be tight for the lower potential 
firings, but with an SRSG, I would imagine for best quenching it 
would be smart to leave the spacing wider (although this makes 
phasing more difficult).  Some people put a static gap in series, or 
have the electricity pass through 4 gaps on one disk, but it would 
make sense to me (I am not an electrical engineer however, just an 
MET in training) that since your "Q" goes down slightly with every 
gap, that you would want as few as possible, meaning 2 gaps (in 
series, as many as you like in parallel) would be best.  I have run 
my gap, on 4 MOTS (I keep burning out the flanks, so I cut back for 
now from 6 to 4) very wide, about .3 cm on both sides, and closing 
the gap distance seemed to make phasing easier, but did not help arc 
length any.  Anybody care to shed some light on this?  Thanks.
Sincerely,
Scott Bogard.
P.S.  Am I correct in my assumption, that what the "Q" actually is, 
is the height of the resonant voltage rise (the huge spike on a 
voltage over frequency graph).  People throw around that little 
letter a lot, and it is hard to find a concrete definition, they are 
always either too complicated to understand for somebody with my 
background, or too simple to help me understand what it technically 
is, so that is my best guess (derived from both the complex and basic 
definitions).  Thanks a bunch.

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